


one who resonates

by thisstableground



Series: girlsnavi AU [2]
Category: In the Heights - Miranda
Genre: F/F, girl usnavi, spoiler alert they bang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 15:54:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15368055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstableground/pseuds/thisstableground
Summary: Vanessa and Usnavi take their nearly-a-relationship to the next level. The highest level, actually. They’re stuck on the roof of Usnavi's apartment building, is what Vanessa’s saying.





	one who resonates

**Author's Note:**

> [anon requested some NSFW girlsnavi/vanessa, anon gets that plus a few thousand words of Thinking because thats how we do. title is from two weeks by fka twigs which doesn't necessarily fit lyrically but listen to that song while you imagine girl usnavi and vanessa fucking and do you see my point? do you see my problem?]

Dating — or, as it turned out, _not_ dating — Yolanda had been sort of like living a very gay perfume commercial. All throaty whispers and fancy lingerie and lipstick stains on elegant wine glasses. She definitely always smelled expensive. If Vanessa had been drinking wine on a rooftop with Yolanda tonight, it probably would’ve been at some little hidden-away bar that you only learn about via engraved invite once you reach a certain level of cool. They’d have probably been sitting on some nice furniture, tastefully backlit by a sunset and some string lights.

At the very least, Vanessa thinks, a date with Yolanda on the roof would not have ended up with them discovering that the only door leading back downstairs has latched behind them.

Usnavi kicks at it glumly, to no effect, and shoves her phone back in her pocket. “Sonny ain’t answering, but I left a message so hopefully he’ll get it some time before tomorrow, else we’re sleeping up here.”

If dating - or pre-dating, or whatever you wanna call it - Usnavi is a commercial, it’s more like one of those late-night informercials for very specific lifehack objects, the ones full of people who can’t hold a bowl of chips without throwing them across the room then breaking their own leg and smashing the TV.

It’s not that Usnavi’s clumsy. Well, she is, yeah, but that’s only sometimes the problem. It’s more like things just happen around her. Usnavi can be standing statue-still in the middle of a room, and then she’ll breathe weird and somehow it’ll make three shelves fall down behind her. Usnavi is the kind of person who should be banned from saying things like “what could possibly go wrong” out loud because the universe always takes it as a personal challenge.

“No text back from the super?” Vanessa digs around in the tote bag next to her to pull the half-finished screwtop bottle of wine back out. Might as well make it a party, if they’re here for the long haul.

“Psh, whole building could burn down and he wouldn’t want nothin’ to do with it if it happened past ten pm,” Usnavi says. “And, uh, para ser justo he did tell me at least four times he ain’t coming to rescue me if I get stuck up here so I should remember to wedge the door.“

“Man, you ain’t get much service for a bribe these days.”

“¿Verdad? Any luck with Benny or Nina?”

“Both phones off,” Vanessa says. “Guess that means _their_ date night went well.”

“Pues claro,” Usnavi mutters sourly. “Bet _they_ ain’t stuck on a roof.”

“Probably not. You ever wonder why they’re so much better at this than we are? Don’t seem fair, does it?”

“I’ve asked Benny to spill the secrets but he just keeps tellin’ me it won’t translate across the gender gap.” Usnavi rolls her shirtsleeves up determinedly. They immediately fall back into place. “Only one option left.”

“If your plan is to Spiderman down the side of the building then—“ Vanessa starts, and then winces in pre-emptive sympathy as Usnavi barrels towards the door and bodyslams into it. It’s like watching a canary try and take down a mountain. She bounces backwards a surprising distance and topples over, clutching her shoulder.

“¡Hijo de puta!”

“How’d that work out for you, buddy?” Vanessa asks. Probably not a good time to mention that the door opens outwards.

“It didn’t open, but I definitely gave it something to think about,” Usnavi says. She part-rolls, part-crawls her way over to the blanket and lies face down next to Vanessa. “This ain’t how I’d been hopin’ tonight would go, if I’m honest.”

“No, really?” Vanessa says dryly, poking Usnavi’s shoulder to see if anything’s broken. Usnavi winces. “So what did you have planned instead?”

“Nothin’ much. Just your classic night under the stars—“

“You mean a night under the light pollution. And also all the other pollution.”

“Exactly. Romantic, and shit. You’d be looking stunning, I’d be looking…I dunno, a _little_ bit less like someone found me sleepin’ on a park bench. And by the end of it you’d be so wooed by my charms that you’d fall into my arms and I’d carry you downstairs and we’d maybe have some…lady time. _”_ Usnavi rolls onto her back to do a slightly disconsolate double finger guns, with accompanying _pew pew_ noises.

“You just lost a fight with a door, I don’t think you could carry me anywhere if you wanted to,” Vanessa points out, offering her the wine. “And don’t call sex _lady time_ , that’s what my abuela used to call getting your period.”

“Man, do I wish I could stop being on such a weird-ass wavelength with your abuela,” Usnavi says, going wide-eyed at the word _sex_ even though she’s the one who brought it up in the first place. “Anyway, ends up I’m wearing the same shit I do every day and we’re probably gonna have to sleep up here, so another big ol’ fail on the De la Vega dating scorecard, nobody is surprised.”

She smiles at Vanessa, sideways and shy and a little bit sad. “Least I was right about you lookin’ stunning.”

Vanessa turns away from the compliment in case she has a facial expression about it, because she doesn’t know _what_ that made her feel but it was definitely something and a pretty big amount of it. “Kinda right about the charms, too. The wooing me with them, and such.”

The tiny smile widens just a little bit as Vanessa peeks at her out the corner of her eye, then drops as Usnavi picks at the label on the wine bottle. “Do you really think that’s true about Nina and Benny? Being better at all of the This than us, I mean.”

“No sé. Could be. Like, how do you even tell?”

Usnavi shrugs, blows across the top of the bottle to make a deep echo of a note and then passes it over. Their fingers brush and they both freeze for a second before Usnavi pulls her hand away so hard she almost hits herself in the stomach.

They pass it back and forth drinking from the bottle without talking, and Vanessa thinks about Nina and Benny. Does she want her and Usnavi to have what they have? It seems so alien, so unappealing. They were practically walking around with their hands in each other’s pockets from jump. They seem happy, so Vanessa’s happy for them, but to her it seems so fast. Straight from flirting to a full relationship almost overnight.

Then again, it had been building a _long_ time, just like Vanessa and Usnavi, and maybe it's moving all the faster for knowing that pretty soon Nina’s going a lot further away than just a trip on the A. That, at least, makes sense. It was so much easier to make a move when Vanessa thought it might be the last time she ever saw Usnavi. Even so, she sure as shit can’t imagine saying _I love you_ after the first time sleeping with someone, no matter how many rumors about them apparently turn out to be true according to Nina. Easier to let go of a mistake when you haven’t trapped yourself into it with promises.

What would Vanessa know, though? She’s got no idea what she’s doing. Her and Usnavi are still fumbling around with barely-brushing fingers and unspoken thoughts, careful and wobbly like they’re trying to avoid the buzzer in a game of Operation. It’s stressful, all this anticipation that might end up as nothing.

“Do you think…” Usnavi says haltingly. “We haven’t exactly had successful dates so far, have we? There’s always been something _._ Do you think maybe all this shit is a sign? I wanna make this work, whatever _this_ is, but like, the whole universe is just _screaming_ that I’m gonna fuck it up and —I dunno. Never mind, forget I said anything.”

She rests her chin on her knees. Vanessa lays back out on the blanket, contemplates the starless sky. Usnavi isn’t wrong. Their first date was obviously a fiasco. And Vanessa coulda _really_ done without them running into Yolanda on the third date, even if it was both flattering and hilarious watching Usnavi torn between jealousy and outrage on Vanessa’s behalf once she explained why _that_ was such an awkward situation. 

The fourth date, the one before this, was going well right up until the point at the end where they should have kissed but didn’t. They were outside Vanessa’s apartment, standing there not kissing each other, painfully aware that either of them could say something, or do something, and all Vanessa ended up saying was “I’ll call you a cab”. They said goodbye with a good few feet of space between them. Usnavi had looked disappointed, but she’d also looked relieved.

That’s not supposed to be the reaction to not getting invited up to a girl’s apartment. Vanessa had felt the same, though. Staying the night is a line, the crossing of which would require her to look herself in the eye and ask what exactly it is she wants next now she’s suddenly achieved the _live downtown_ dream that she’s had her sights fixed on for years. Staying the night is a promise, and she’s not sure she’s ready to make it. What do they want next, and are those things compatible?

It’s only sensible to keep it at a slow pace, isn’t it? When there’s something at stake, when everything else in their lives has changed so fast all in one go, and while it’s still too recently clear to everyone how quickly something good can be lost, how easily it happens. It must be clearer to nobody more than Usnavi. No wonder she’s being cautious. 

And yet for some reason Vanessa’s feeling chill about everything at this exact moment. She’s been lowkey fretting since they passed go, but here and now where _something_ is inevitable because there’s nothing to do but face the situation, she’s not contemplating parkouring across the buildings to try and escape it. Their dates might not have ever been perfect but they keep coming back for more. She’s been living downtown more than a month and she keeps coming back to the barrio, to the bodega, almost every day, when she said that would never happen. That means something, right? 

It’s too definitively nighttime now to be a picturesque sunset moment, the blanket they’re lying on is scratchy and the ground underneath is uncomfortable. Neither of them know what they’re doing. But Usnavi’s here and it’s like things just _happen_ around her. Usnavi can be sitting in the dark nervously tugging at a loose thread on her shirt and somehow it leaves Vanessa feeling like she’s walking on sunbeams. Usnavi can say things like “what if this is a sign from the universe that we should stop” and all it does it make Vanessa want to personally prove the universe wrong.

“Second date was good,” she says. It was. They sat in the park and drank the champagne they never had chance to finish before (Vanessa opened it). They just talked. It was easy, like being friends but sitting a lot closer together.

“Second date _was_ good,” Usnavi acquiesces, with that little suggestion of a smile again. That’s not enough now.

“ _This_ date’s good,” Vanessa pushes. Usnavi raises a disbelieving eyebrow. “Legit! Not like we’re gonna die of cold in August, we got leftover snacks, we got wine. Company ain’t too bad. Someone’ll get us down eventually. Where’s the problem?”

“I ain’t got a problem,” Usnavi says. She’s so pretty, in the shadows distorted across her worried face under the single light beside the door. “I just—“

She’s so _pretty._ Vanessa means to listen but accidentally ends up kissing her instead. Sometimes that’s just how things go.

“Sorry,” she says, when they break apart. “I interrupted. Couldn’t help it.”

“Todo bien,” Usnavi says, somewhat faintly, and there’s what Vanessa was looking for: that big Usnavi grin, crooked teeth and crinkly eyes. Then Usnavi flings herself without warning into Vanessa’s lap and several things happen before she can keep up with them. All of them involve a lot of tongue and accidentally some teeth and then _deliberately_ some teeth, soft biting Usnavi’s bottom lip and taking note of the muffled pleased sound she gets in response.

“I ain’t got a problem,” Usnavi repeats when they break apart, more firmly this time. She takes her hat off, leans over to weigh it down with the wine bottle so it doesn’t blow away, taking her phone out of her pocket to put alongside it. 

Vanessa has to remind herself to breathe for a second. Hat comes off and all of a sudden things are very real. Crazy how life can take you to places like being twenty-two with your own downtown apartment and a hot girl literally on top of you. Okay, the girl aspect is not quite so much a big thing any more because Vanessa García is nothing if not good at adapting to new circumstances and she’s had a year to get used to that. But she’s definitely stalling a little at the mental shift over from _this is Usnavi De la Vega who runs the bodega_ to _this is Usnavi De la Vega who kisses with her whole body and way too much tongue,_ because now _that’s_ just a fact of personal experience that Vanessa’s never going to un-know, and she doesn’t even mind about the tongue. Usnavi’s always been too much everything, a whole New York City of a girl crammed into five foot two like an overstuffed suitcase, always too much talking and noise and movement and stress and overthinking. 

Vanessa can’t remember a time in her own life that wasn’t spent bouncing against boundaries of settling for the barrio, settling for her mom’s house, trying to break through that wall of mediocrity. Too much is exactly what Vanessa likes. Too much is perfect. Too much is sitting in Vanessa’s lap, breathing heavily, fingers toying with the bottom hem of her tank top. Usnavi is whatever the opposite of claustrophobia is, and things just sort of _happen_ around her: at some point it happens that Vanessa’s taking off Usnavi’s baggy red shirt so she’s left just an undershirt and between that and being hatless she seems naked already. At some point it happens that they shift so Usnavi’s sitting with one leg hooked under and one over Vanessa’s and Vanessa the same in reverse. It must make a pretty kind of symmetry, if anyone were to look at them. 

It must also be glaringly obvious what the deal is. No way that this setup could be mistaken for anything other than what it is. No way can Vanessa pretend both of them don’t know how it's gonna shake out if they carry on.

“Usnavi,” she says, reluctant to move too far out of the kiss, incredibly aware that moving just a couple more inches forward would feel so fucking good. “Usnavi, we’re _outside_.”

“Mmm, I noticed,” Usnavi says distractedly, stroking Vanessa’s legs. The denim of her shorts is scratchy high up on the inside of Vanessa’s thigh. Vanessa stills Usnavi’s hands with her own: it would be easier in the long run, she knows, to stop now. They should probably talk things through first. 

Usnavi, misreading the hesitation, says “s’dark over there, on the other side, if we move nobody can see—“ and somehow it happens that they end up over in the shadows, lying on the repositioned blanket desperately trying to get their hands wherever they can reach. Vanessa touches Usnavi’s hair, her hips, underneath her shirt to trail slow down each individual ridge of her spine.

“You sure?” Usnavi asks, breathless and close, her hair tickling Vanessa’s shoulder. “You sure you wanna do this?

It would be easier to stop now. Vanessa is not going to stop now. She unclips Usnavi’s bra, since her hand is already in the vicinity.

“Alrighty then, asked and answered,” Usnavi says cheerfully. Vanessa’s about to call her a fuckin’ nerd for using the word _alrighty_ mid-foreplay but then Usnavi takes her tank top off and tosses her bra carelessly to the side too. She looks all in shades of blue in this dim light, dimly orange-yellow around the edges where the streetlights hit like she’s glowing.

“Jeee- _sus_ ,” Vanessa says. “You’re hot as hell, you know that?”

“You started it,” Usnavi says, faux-aggressive. “Wanna make out about it?”

“No doubt, no doubt.” 

It’s easy, in its way, like being friends except sitting a lot closer together, except kissing, except undoing Usnavi’s belt and pulling her shorts off to leave her naked except for her sneakers. She’s small, in that unrefined soft way people are small when it’s more genetic than cultivated, but there’s a functional kind of solidity to her thighs and arms from working in the store when Vanessa touches them, oddly surprised by the knowledge that Usnavi has a shape that isn’t just a pile of laundry with skinny calves. It almost seems a shame that Usnavi hides this under the kinds of clothes she wears, but given how unfazed she seems by being out of them while Vanessa's still dressed it’s probably that she just doesn’t really care enough to think about it, a hint of a secret self-confidence that Vanessa didn’t know Usnavi had but is thrilled to be the one to discover. Why have they waited five dates when she coulda been seeing this for a month already?  _Damn_.

Vanessa’s never been shy about her own body either, she knows what she's working with here, but its still a nice ego-trip to see Usnavi’s face when she strips off. She actually bothered to shave, which she doesn’t always do, and it heightens the tentative touch of Usnavi’s fingertips fluttering down to between her legs sensitive against bare skin.

Fuck, and then she spreads Vanessa open and slides touching up the length of her slit, makes little circles, her long fingers with short nails always unpainted. For some reason it makes Vanessa think of when Usnavi used to play guitar, or of her handing over a cup of coffee, rare little moments of Usnavi moving gracefully. It makes Vanessa wonder if Usnavi’s been with other girls and how many, or if this is something she’s just learned on her own body, or if she just likes Vanessa enough that it overrides her clumsiness. She brings her fingers up to her mouth, which should probably be illegal, and sucks the middle two wet so she can fuck Vanessa with them.

Don’t need anything extra for Usnavi: she’s soaked when Vanessa slides a flat palm across the close-cut curls of dark hair and two fingers slide in easy, then three to see how it makes Usnavi arch her back and move her own hand harder. Vanessa works her up to moaning which really don’t take long, and laughs because there’s nothing at all surprising about Usnavi being a noisy fuck **.** “How far d’you think sound carries up here?”

“What, you really gonna be doin’ this to me and expectin’ I’ll keep quiet about it?” Usnavi groans. Vanessa curls her fingers forward, a repeating _come over here_ movement. “ _Shit!”_

“Never said I wanted you to be quiet, just that you ain’t.” All her logic’s jumped right off the building: Vanessa doesn’t give a damn if the whole _block_ can hear Usnavi, Vanessa’s name echoing back off herself a hundred times over like she’s forgotten how to say anything else. Nobody’s ever said her name quite as lovely as Usnavi always does, and now Vanessa’s learning whole new ways to hear it. She doesn’t give a damn if they can hear how loud her own heartbeat is or the sound of their fingers sliding wetly inside each other, Usnavi starting to falter out of time while Vanessa keeps steady. 

It’s the only time she’s ever known Usnavi to be off the beat, her hand stilling momentarily when Vanessa hits where she needs it, more distracted the closer she gets. Pushing her hips up and those noises and _Jesus_ , the way that she tightens around Vanessa's touch. It’s also just a little bit fucking unbearable that every time Vanessa starts getting somewhere herself the rhythm’s lost, and it’s not enough to keep encouraging Usnavi’s movement with her own hand so with all the willpower in the world she pulls out and pulls away.

“No-oo,” Usnavi complains, then, when Vanessa pushes her legs wider apart and kneels over her, amends it to “or yes, do that.”

It takes a few adjustments to position right but then she’s riding Usnavi’s cunt against hers, heat adding to already overheating night in the unmoving summer air and hotter still from exertion, slide of sweat and wetness and _Usnavi._ There’s a background ringing sound that Vanessa almost thinks is her own ears. Phone, she acknowledges distantly. Something about that should mean something but honestly the entire barrio could be on the roof of the next building over and Vanessa wouldn’t be able to stop now, not when there’s more important things to think about like moving harder and faster, like Usnavi whining as Vanessa pinches gently at her nipple, Usnavi pulling haphazardly at Vanessa’s hips and at her ass to try and speed things up then letting go to slam her hands so hard against the ground beside her it must hurt.

“Fuck,” she says, in a sobbing voice. “Oh, fuck, _Vanessa_.”

She bites down hard on the side of her hand to muffle the sound when she comes, and she’s shaking from it still when Vanessa follows, light and elated, almost blinding. 

As it fades out the only coherent thought Vanessa can put together is that _mierda_ , her knees hurt like hell. She lies forward, cushioned by Usnavi underneath her. Usnavi’s trembling twists along its edges to turn into giggling, little puffs of air laughed cool against the damp sweat on Vanessa’s skin.

“That just happened,” she says, gleefully disbelieving. “Deadass just got fuckedby Vanessa goddamn García on a roof, god _damn_.”

“That more what you were hoping for date number five to be?” Vanessa asks. She feels lazy and transcendent. Sleeping out here doesn’t sound so bad at the minute. 

“And then some,” Usnavi says, then makes a seesaw motion with one hand. “Gotta admit I assumed there’d be a bed, but other than that.”

“A _bed_?” Vanessa says, exaggerated outrage. “God _,_ some people ain’t ever happy.”

“Pretty happy,” Usnavi says, tucking Vanessa’s hair behind her ear and looking at her in an all-seeing way that kinda hurts to look back at. “Pretty fuckin’ happy, actually.”

Vanessa means to say something sweet in return, but instead says “didn’t your phone ring, during?”

“Did it?” Usnavi awkwardly pats around at her side till she grabs her phone and then tries to jolt upwards with limited success since Vanessa’s still lying on her. “Oh, coño, Sonny’s comin’ to get the door! Where the hell are my pants?”

They scramble around to get decent. Usnavi puts her hat on first before anything else. Vanessa pulls her clothes back on other than her underwear which she shoves in the bag, ties her hair back to hide how limp and gross it’s gone. She thumbs a smudge of her own lipstick off Usnavi’s cheek and there’s a moment where maybe they’re supposed to kiss or maybe they’re supposed to talk about what they just did, but the impending presence of a teenage cousin is nothing if not the biggest moodkiller so instead they just step away from each other, standing arms distance away in a hesitant silence. Not the comfortable kind. It’s actually a relief when Sonny opens the door with his usual level of unnecessary drama, bowing deeply like a butler in a baseball cap.

“I coulda told you this would happen,” he says to Usnavi. _Hope not_ , _actually_ , Vanessa thinks. “Jeez. Y’all really can’t function without me here to play Cupid, can you?” 

Alarming to think that might be accurate: the real world just hit them hard. Now there’s going to be _aftermath._ Sonny chatters at them all the way downstairs while they try and act like just a couple of people having a totally normal and PG-rated evening.

“Aite,” he says, outside Usnavi’s door. “No need to thank me for saving your lives, just doin’ what I do. You need me to walk you to the station, V, or are you crashing here?”

“Um,” Vanessa says.

“Uhhh,” Usnavi says.

Sonny looks between them and astutely decides it’s time for him to be very uninvolved very quickly. “Ah, actually, it’s late, my mom will be wondering where I—you guys can just, I’m gonna, adios!”

Vanessa suppresses the urge to shout WAIT, TAKE ME WITH YOU at his retreating back and turns to Usnavi, who gives her a look close to panic about having to deal with a situation. Mood.

“If I wanna get home at this time I should probably call a cab,” Vanessa says eventually just to break the tension. It isn’t quite the same as “I’m _going_ to call a cab.”

“You oughta stay,” Usnavi blurts, looking embarrassed. _“_ I…I want you to stay.”

Well, shit. There’ll be no turning back whatever Vanessa does. She could just say, it was fun but that’s all it was. She could say, I don’t know how to be in a serious relationship, or if you’d even want to be in one with me after we spend more time together, and maybe it’s best to back out before someone gets hurt. Real dick move, but not like Vanessa has to come back to the store, or work next door, or even see Usnavi again if she doesn’t want to now she lives downtown. That’s what she’s always told everyone she’d do anyway, right? It would be easier to stop now.

Usnavi reads the length of the pause, tightens her shoulders and takes her phone out of her pocket. “I’ll call —“

Vanessa gently takes the phone out of Usnavi’s hand.

“I’m staying,” she says. “I wanna stay.”

**Author's Note:**

> [comments are super appreciated thankyou!]
> 
> [come hang out with me on [tumblr](https://thisstableground.tumblr.com)]


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